Bloomberg Claims Victory as Georgia Gun Dealer Withdraws From Trial

Saying he could not afford what he feared would be an unfair trial, a Georgia gun dealer accused by New York City of illegally selling handguns that made their way to New York backed out of his federal trial on Monday, the day it was set to begin.

The city will now negotiate with the dealer, Jay Wallace, to allow a “special master” to oversee gun sales at his store, potentially joining 20 other dealers who have settled lawsuits filed by the city.

“This is an important victory for New Yorkers, as good as a win at trial, and a validation of our innovative efforts to hold gun dealers accountable for following federal laws,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said in a statement.

In 2006, the city sued Mr. Wallace and 26 other gun dealers, mainly in the South, claiming their lax or illegal gun sales created a public nuisance in New York City. Two cases have been thrown out of court, two sellers have gone out of business and two more are set for trial in September.

Mr. Wallace, who owns Adventure Outdoors in an Atlanta suburb, presented his decision to withdraw not as a retreat or a defeat, but as a strategy to avoid financial ruin by speeding up the process of appeal. By entering a so-called default with the city, Mr. Wallace can now skirt the costs of a trial and move more quickly to an appellate court with what he claims are fundamental frailties in the case.

“Am I not an American who deserves the Constitution?” he asked at an often angry news conference held in a park outside the Federal District Court in Brooklyn, where the trial was to have begun. “Why am I not allowed to have a jury of my peers?”

Mr. Wallace, 51, was referring to a ruling last month by Jack B. Weinstein, the presiding judge, to put in place what is known as an advisory jury — one whose decision would not be binding and would leave the judge himself as the final arbiter of fact and law. Mr. Wallace’s lawyer, John Renzulli, argued that Judge Weinstein had already made up his mind about the case, making any trial “a mere formality.”

“Unlike the city, which can spend unlimited amounts of taxpayers’ money, Adventure Outdoors is a small retail dealer with limited resources and cannot afford to participate in a four-week bench trial, the result of which is a forgone conclusion,” Mr. Renzulli wrote in a motion.

He later added in a hallway of the courthouse, “The mayor cannot use his bully pulpit to force someone into submission because he has more money and more lawyers.”

From the start, the case has been an often bitter battle between Mr. Wallace, a small-town Southern merchant, and Mr. Bloomberg, whom Mr. Renzulli once described as “the billionaire mayor.” The two men were headed for a personal and (potentially distracting) showdown in the courtroom — at least until Judge Weinstein ruled two weeks ago that Mr. Bloomberg, who was scheduled to testify, could not appear in court.

In his statement, Mr. Bloomberg said: “We have always said that we have no interest in bankrupting gun dealers, only in ensuring that they follow federal laws.”

As early as 8 a.m. on Monday, there was no obvious sign that Mr. Wallace’s trial would be called off. Jurors arrived at the courthouse expecting to be questioned by the lawyers. Mr. Wallace’s three sons arrived from Smyrna, Ga., to stay with Mr. Wallace and his wife, who had rented an apartment in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, for the duration of the trial.

Then Mr. Renzulli filed a motion to withdraw from the case, which Judge Weinstein promptly denied. The judge said he would have to appear before a magistrate judge to work on the terms of the default. Mr. Renzulli seemed almost outraged to have been ordered to remain.

“You’re keeping me captive in a case my client cannot afford,” he testily told the judge. “I find that to be repugnant. I will fight that, and I will fight it hard, and I will not give up.”

But Mr. Renzulli stood beside his client at the news conference an hour later in the park. While Mr. Wallace was contemptuous of Mr. Bloomberg, he had nothing but praise for the ordinary people of New York.

“I happened to have visited Brooklyn Hospital” — with what was described as stress-induced chest pains — “and received nothing but the best of care,” Mr. Wallace said. “The people there are a credit to their industry and an asset to their community. It’s a shame that the mayor and his staff are not the same way.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on page B6 of the New York edition with the headline: Bloomberg Claims Victory as Georgia Gun Dealer Withdraws From Trial. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe